I just got back my first law school grade and I only got a B+. I know this isn’t a bad grade, but I sure would prefer a better grade. I really want to work for a really good firm after law school. The only problem is I don’t go to one of the really great law schools (guess which one - lower top ten with a summer term). I wanted to make law review but with this grade I’m thinking this might be out.
I realize I should like an asshole. “Look I won’t be at the best firm in the country and I will only make 125k coming out of law school - cry for me.” But the thing is I don’t care about the money or anything. I just want to do something important and I feel like I fucked that all up with this one grade.
Yep…you’re doomed. Might as well drop out and spend the rest of your life flipping burgers. Og forbid a lawyer ever get less than an A+ in any class. :rolleyes:
Look, as long as the class wasn’t Ethics (or do lawyers even take that class?) who cares what you got? Unless you are absolutely determined to work for the biggest firm in the nation, you will have a job. Whether you do anything productive with it is up to you. One B+ does not an ambulance-chaser make.
Now granted I live in a smallish area and maybe you’re in a huge metro area, where 125k isn’t all that. But I do not personally know any lawyer that started out making 125k, or even the equivalent if you adjust for the area I’m living in.
I sure hope YOU do, of course! I’m just wondering where you’re at in case I ever decide to bite the bullet and go to law school
$125,000 is pretty much the standard starting salary at large firms in New York City. That’s what I made at the Wall Street firm I first worked for when I finished law school. Of course, a big chunk of that ridiculous salary gets eaten up with housing costs and taxes in Gotham.
Having said that, there are plenty of excellent lawyers at smaller firms (such as the one I’m about to start at in Dallas) who make less than top dollar but still live very well and manage to have a life to boot. The “best” firms (by which most people mean “largest”) are a great place to see interesting, complex work, but they’re also great places to work until well after midnight regularly, give up most of your weekends, and generally live under the thumb of people who are practically clinically insane.
And frankly, if you want to do important, meaningful work, you’d be better served at a small shop where you’re more able to make meaningful contributions rather than simply being another cog in the legal machine.
Having said all that, I had a B- on my first-year transcript when I started interviewing. It ain’t a death sentence.
One grade will not kill you. I got a C- in a class once in my 2L year and still made salutatorian. Mind you, we had a very, very heavy curve in required classes, and only three to six percent of the class could get an A- or above. The first year I was the only person out of 320 or so students to make straight A’s in a semester, the first time I’d done so since sixth grade. So our grades were on the whole lower than other law schools.
Still, one B+ in your first semester? Yeesh, don’t worry about it. Even if that were a bad grade, which it isn’t, most employers will overlook a stutter-step. Besides, you could be like the guys in my school who flunked out after the first year and are still paying back those student loans anyway. Count your blessings.
Don’t listen to the others. You’re right. It’s over for you. Now you’ll have to make your living being a dirty little man whore. Walking the streets with a tampon in your ass, doing unspeakable things just to survive. Wearing a little Dutch Boy outfit while you scrub a wealthy man’s bathtub as writhes in in an orgastic frenzy.
I’m still a lowly undergrad, but I’ve got a little story.
My GPA is 3.711. Yes, I’m anal enough to have memorized it to three decimal places. I am protective of that GPA to the point where I am paranoid. I’m changing my minor because I don’t want to have to take economics or two free electives. Three classes might bring that precious GPA down. I’m taking Intermediate Spanish pass-fail so I don’t kill my GPA. That’s how paranoid I am about it.
Enough backstory. Last night, I had a conversation with a professor. I’ve been considering law school and grad school while the law school sorts some issues out. He reminded me that while a 3.711 may not be a perfect 4.0, it’s still pretty fuckin’ high. If I can keep it that high, they’ll be calling me.
I needed that reality check. I can’t be perfect; all I can do is my best. Fortunately, my best is pretty damn good.
So relax. A B+ isn’t the end of the world. You’ll bounce back.
Well, stop by. I’m in a building full of lawyers, and first year associates here start at 125K. Granted, it’s Chicago, but so do our new associates in Charlotte and Houston. In California, they start at 145K. Snot-nosed little bastards!
Seriously, several years ago the major law firms were freaked out by the High Tech boom, and felt they were losing good law school grads to Internet companies. That’s why they upped the starting salaries, and why California is more (Silicone Valley and all). When the bubble bust, they were left with that salary structure.
Unfortunately for them though, the firm also upped the minimum number of hours that must be billed (or at least accounted for). Basically the associates have to work 10 hours a day during the week and six hours on the weekend just to hit the minimum. I’d personally rather have a life than the extra money. Then again, I have to keep their computers running, so I’ve put in long hours too.
Henry Kissinger reportedly got straight A’s all through Harvard, including grad school. And he ended up working for the only President ever to resign in disgrace. What, you want to be like him?
I got all B’s in Law school until my third year and only graduated in the top third of my class. How can I admit this? Easy. I’m a great lawyer, and my professors told me I’d be a great lawyer even when I was pulling down B’s in their classes. Of course, I never intended to work for a big firm–I either wanted to be a small town, general purpose family/personal injury lawyer, an environmental lawyer (an idea that died in my Administrative law class, because really, all environmental law really is, is admin law) or a labor lawyer.
So, I’m a labor lawyer in my dream job. I am working for a cause I believe in, and for an organization that I respect, and I get to help real people in an area that has a vast effect of their lives. I’ll mostly likely never make 100K a year (unless I move to the International, and that’s unlikely), but then, I never have to wear a suit.
Kel, darlin’, relax. At worst, if you’re grades aren’t and you do want to work for one of the big boxes, you’ll start at a big box firm at the lower end of the top ten, work a couple of years, and then get a job with a firm higher up the food chain. In the long run, who you are and what you can actually do is really more important than your grades.
Ditto. The ay I look at it, a lot of people could make $100,000+ a year, if they work two full time jobs, which is basically what an associate is doing.
Boy. B+!? You’re lucky. I was absent the day they taught law at law school. I’ll be paying for this for quite a long time. If you sold your B+ on e-bay, I mean, after replacing it with a more acceptable grade, I’ll certainly bid on it.
Yes, silenus, they still teach ethics in law school. It has been incorporated into the required Salary Negotiation and 12 Legal Ways to Subvert the Law course.
My law school had a C+ grading curve for all classes with more than 30 students. That meant the grades on all of the exams had to average 2.7 out of 4.0 for each class. Guess who was almost always in that C+ range? It’s pretty humbling to go from a 3.8 GPA in undergrad to a 2.7 GPA in law school. In three years of classes I got two As – the rest of my grades were Bs and Cs.
Kel, I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you. Most of my law school classmates would have killed for a B+, and they’re all working in firms today. I could have gone to a firm, too, but I chose to work for a legal publisher instead. Best decision I ever made.
Well, pick yourself up and do “something important”. First, do your honest best at the rest of your classes, and set the foundation of a good network of friends and contacts while at school. Then, once you’re out, figure out what is “important” and do that. Defend a noble underdog. Make the streets safe for the law-abiding. Get the person who can save America elected President. Help a sweet little old lady draw up a Will that will do right by her loved ones. Nail the bastard CEO who shafted his workers. Warn some honest trusting citizen that the contract is abusive and she should not sign it. Clerk for the lower-level judge who gets the ball rolling on the next historic decision. Become known as the Lawyer who’ll bust his arse for what is right.
That’s doing something important.
And it begins by getting a grip, take some deep breaths, have some nice green tea, perhaps a half milligram of Ativan, while sitting in a relaxing setting, and figuring out what is it you want, and why.
ladybug, I’m so happy to hear from you. I was a thoroughly mediocre law student, so this entire thread has made me sick to my stomach just reading it (kinda like listening to people discuss their final exam answers right as we left the classroom). Our school had a strict bell curve as well, and the only two As I ever earned were as a teaching assistant for the 1L Legal Research and Writing courses. I earned a handful of B+s and Bs, but got more C+s and Cs than I ever expected to see in my life. It stung in the beginning, but then I got used to it and just slipped into numbness.
Honestly, going to law school was the worst decision I ever made in my life. I never wanted to be an attorney, and certainly didn’t want to work for a big firm and bill tons of hours. I guess that worked out, then, because I ended up with a C+ GPA myself–the big firms wouldn’t touch me with a ten-meter cattle prod. I was miserable throughout most of school, drifting, directionless, never feeling like I fit in or was “the right kind of person” to be a successful law student or lawyer. I hated it, so I ended up graduating early, after 2 1/2 years instead of 3.
However, I excelled in all the research and writing and legal drafting classes (which unfortunately were “pass/fail” instead of grades, or grades were weighted a lot less), I did a decent job in Trial Practice and assumed a good “persona” of being a laid-back, likeable guy that juries would feel at ease around, made some good friends, and tried to get involved in extracurriculars–no Law Review or Moot Court or anything prestigious like that, though.
In the end, I still haven’t even passed the damn Bar Exam, I haven’t found a stable job yet, and I feel like a complete failure. While the public law school I went to is ranked the highest in the state, I feel like I am at a distinct disadvantage in this job market compared to graduates from smaller and less-prestigious schools. A lot of my classmates, most of whom did better than I did in school, are having the same problems finding work, and they all “want it” more than I do. I invested a lot of time and money in something I never really wanted or saw myself doing, and I’ve never had a really good idea of what I SHOULD do instead. I graduated last summer, and I’ve accomplished so little in the last year it makes me physically ill to think about it. So the OP shouldn’t worry at all–it sounds like he’s on the right path. That’s more than some of us law-talking people can say for ourselves.
Does your lawschool base all of law review on grades? Because I thought most of the Top 25 have a writing competition. Here only the top 5% make it on solely b/c of grades and even they are expected to turn in a note. So, seriously, calm down. If you put effort into your note, you’ll probably make it on.
I’m also snorting over the thought that you go to a Top 10 and you don’t think you go to a good school. I go to U of I which is a lower Top 25 and I think I go to a great school-not Harvard, but a good school nonetheless. Wonder what you think of 10-15, 15-25…I remember from the Princeton Review site that everything outside of the Top 3 was considered a “TTT”
